Between the bullet and the bare chest

The current popular revolution or popular resistance in Palestine, with its young field leaders, represents the persistent and effective mass practice to confront colonial policies and the colonial project as a whole by occupying the land and displacing the people. It is a revolution that is working to find its mature and best path that we believe it should reach.

It is understood that the revolution and popular resistance work as a whole only within a comprehensive national vision with clear goals, and through expanded systematic activities (geographically, segmentally, and temporally) to dismantle the colonial project.

The basis for the struggle is Palestine only, and it was not a private or public organization at all. Palestine is the goal and the compass, and its liberation determines the strategy and path. Gathering forces and achieving a difficult balance is a basic entrance.

Therefore, activating or escalating the existing mass revolution or resistance, albeit with minimal limits, against the occupation, against settler terrorism, and against extremist terrorism in Jerusalem, which must be specific and commensurate with the regional and international situation, and be consistent with the ability of the Palestinian people and the masses and the sustainability of their action.

Let us try to draw a shape that is consistent with the equation of ability and possibility and the most appropriate and capable of achieving the goal.

•The revolution, struggle, or resistance in the general sense is most popular among Palestinians in the line of fire and those who are also in the line of waiting for return abroad.

•But this is not how revolutions are, which if they do not rely on reason and trust (a theory, a clear goal, and a comprehensive work) will retreat.

•If it does not understand the level of strength, it will be helpless and retreat, and perhaps  it will despair and be disappointed.

•And if the revolutionary leadership could not calculate the positions of its feet, its legs betrayed it
•If it is not united, its voice, or rather its voices, will be lost in the wilderness.

•And if it is unable or does not make an effort through conceptual unity to mobilize the entire masses towards the political goal, it will fail, stagnate, or become captive to slogans that are contradicted by action.

The individual armed action by some guerrillas, or by revolutionary youth, or by new formations that are not mobilized, not politicized, not trained, and not linked to a clear method of action and strategy, and in light of the situation in which the factions are, with their fragmentation, showmanship, arguments, and quarrels, and in light of the situation of the Palestinian people, dispersed between social and economic and patriotism, and in light of the ferocity of the terrorist occupation act and its technology (violent espionage technology), it is a difficult situation to the point of being impossible to achieve victory, which requires review, criticism, dialogue, and clarification of the theoretical-intellectual path as a prelude to navigating the establishment of methods leading to achieving victory.

We all remember many examples from contemporary history of the success of popular or peaceful resistance in achieving its goals. Do we Palestinians have that vision and strategy for the concept and philosophy of revolution against the occupation in light of the current situation, or the concept of resisting the occupation within the framework of a long-term popular revolution or long-term popular resistance? In the peaceful public sense?
The fact that young field action leaders have a clear vision and goal for the new revolution or new resistance requires developing a calm strategy, with clear expected results, that is, a clear final goal of what we want to achieve in terms of political gains.

The vision must be consistent with the official media movement, the Arab and regional movement, and with the image of Palestine and the cause that we seek globally, in accordance with the reality of the struggle of the narrative and the legal and political struggle in the corridors of global parliaments and in the United Nations.
The (new) popular revolution or mass popular resistance with young hands and arms represents another and different concept from guerrilla military action, which in experience was nationally supported by a unified plan and leadership, and had a depth of extension from at least one country in the ocean, as it was before.

The reality today is darker and more difficult in the field than at the beginning of the start of the Palestinian revolution and then its deepening, as we see the weakness, impotence and fighting of the political forces, whether internal or external. We see wavering public support for some methods of confronting the terrorism and occupation of the deadly controlling power. Therefore, the Great Intifada, then the Second Intifada (in 2000 AD), and then the movements and uprisings that followed in Jerusalem and the West Bank were creative forms in the field that could be built upon.

The idea of peaceful popular resistance became more and more established (since 2005 AD) until it was approved by all factions in their virtual meeting with the president in 2020 AD, and this dramatic transformation was for the following reasons.

1- The practices of the Zionist-American terrorist military and security raid force used to crush a revolution, or revolutions, uprisings and movements of the Palestinian people, without any Arab or international deterrent.

2- The lack of equality of power when bare chests and exposed backs confront the Israeli artillery, brutality and terrorism.

3- The Arab countries surrounding “Israel” are linked to peace/settlement agreements, or truce agreements, and thus there is a lack of real official support for any Palestinian military resistance (or even an ongoing field confrontation).

4- The lack of geographical depth for any armed resistance against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. (The experiences of the eight aggressions (from 2006 onwards) on the Gaza Strip provide a model for the outcome of the situation.)

5- The enormous technical capabilities possessed by the occupation and its industrial capabilities in confronting the Palestinian people, instead of its internal security penetration.

6- The weakness and fragmentation of official and factional Palestinian efforts following the bloody coup by the Hamas faction in 2007, the growing lust for power and authority, and the eradication of the other.

7- The occupation’s control, with open American support, over the Arab environment (our Arab back) through normalization agreements (Trump-Abraham Accords).